


a consuming midnight hunger

by aisverse



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime)
Genre: Banter, Crack, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 08:02:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28827855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aisverse/pseuds/aisverse
Summary: A desperate need to feed his Pokémon has Ash seeking help from an old childhood rival he knew couldn't ignore him.
Relationships: Ookido Shigeru | Gary Oak/Satoshi | Ash Ketchum
Comments: 8
Kudos: 25





	a consuming midnight hunger

**Author's Note:**

> I've BEEN missing Gary Oak ever since I realized he stopped appearing 'regularly' after the Johto league ended. Heard the rumors of him coming back for the new series. They've already brought back Misty and Brock. They cannot NOT give us Gary too! Sophisticated, lab coat wearing researcher Gary has both Ash AND me extremely interested! Don't just erase that from existing, you cowards!
> 
> PS: I rewrote this shit twice now. Why is writing so hard?

Ash’s eyes twitched as he flicked the light switch on with a reluctant hand that then slid down the wall tiredly. The ceiling lights flared to wash an orange tint across a room divided evenly between kitchen and living area.

He staggered over to a small round cherry stained dining table separating the two spaces. Pikachu rushed in and propped himself on the table. Ash rubbed his eyes then stared at the rodent with a squint. Pikachu bounced and swatted his tail into the table, both excited and impatient with Ash merely staring at him. 

A clock ticked on a wall above the kitchen sink and Ash rubbed a fist into his face when he saw the clock read just a little after two o’clock in the morning. 

“Pikachu,” he groans. “Can’t you wait four hours?”

The pokemon stomped on the table in answer - nope. 

Ash stood staring at Pikachu for another minute, but he winced when sparks crackled along Pikachu’s tail. He sighed, scratched the back of his neck, then pushed himself into the fridge.

The grassy smell of freshly harvested vegetables assaulted him as he shoved his face into the crisper drawer shelves. He sneered over the ingredients. His shoulders slumped at the very thought of having to prepare a proper meal before even the torchics started crowing.

“Do you even care _what_ I make?” Ash asked. Pikachu shook his head, then sat his yellow furred butt on the table. Clearly not bothering to lift a paw to help. “...I’m not making anything that needs the stove. Just warning you now.”

“Pika!”

“Nope!” He slammed the fridge door. He turned, glaring, and placed his hands on both his hips. “You said you didn’t care what. You eat the food I give you or we can just turn tail, turn off the lights, and go right back to bed. It took us four days to walk to Pallet Town when it usually took us a week when we were with Misty and Brock. And MOST of that time,” Ash pinched the side of Pikachu’s redden cheek. “YOU took it easy and relaxed, slugged over my shoulder.”

Pushing aside the whining Pikachu, Ash spun around and opened the freezer. He nearly slammed his hands together in a thankful prayer when he registered the insides through his half-muddled sleep-deprived brain. 

Most of the freezer was empty since his mother had always preferred making fresh meals from the garden they grew in their backyard. The one exception laid stacked to the back of the freezer. Two boxes of two-inch thick frozen waffles. 

He used to dash out the front door the moment the sun washed over the hills around Pallet Town and his mother often worked in the gardens in the early mornings. Their timing never meshed well enough to have breakfast together. So she started stocking frozen waffles Ash would stuff in his green bulbasaur shaped backpack and eat untoasted but warm from being pressed against his body all morning.

Ash grabbed a box and tore it open with practiced familiarity. Nostalgia seeped into his skin as he shoved the nail of his thumb across the grainy rough top hatch of the cardboard box. He had gone DAYS eating nothing but these waffles every late morning while sulking around the hillsides valleys surrounding his hometown.

He quickly slid the waffles on a plate and tossed it into a microwave. He set it for seven minutes on a low setting since he didn’t want to bother waiting for it to thaw properly first. He shuffled into a seat besides Pikachu and the two of them simply leaned on each other, watching. 

Three minutes passed, and with each ticking silence passed, Pikachu’s leg started thumping softly against the backrest of an unoccupied chair. 

Without Ash realizing, he started cradling his head in his propped up hand and his eyes drifted half-closed. The vibrations of Pikachu’s ire in his flouncing electricity and the repeated ticking of the clock lulled Ash into a half doze.

Next thing he knows, he felt a sharp static rumbling in the air. After being partners with Pikachu for so long, the hair on the back of Ash's neck rose on instinct and he bodily flung himself out of the chair to hug the wall.

He watched as Pikachu jumped, his tail pressed tight into the front of his body, nestled between his hind legs. Electricity coated his tail in small revolving circuit waves, the crackling built up in a single breath. Pikachu slashed his tail forward and sent a small thunderbolt into the air. It flew into the microwave.

A shockwave shook the device. It thrashed against the white tiled counter and the metallic banging was so loud Ash was surprised Mr. Mime wasn’t scurrying down the hall with a mop in hand yet. The vibrations thrusted it forward til the edge of the counter wailed like an overheated tea kettle as it scraped against the bottom of the microwave, crashing to the floor. 

Ash tasted burnt sulphur in the air from the black smoke floating out of the microwave’s cracked door. He screamed his thanks inside his own head that the microwave somehow miraculously didn’t explode entirely. 

He turnt to Pikachu and stretched his arms wide on both sides. “Pikachu! What the fuck?!”

Pikachu nervously scratched the back of his neck and soundlessly tucked his tail fully under him.

“You couldn’t have waited THREE BLOODY MINUTES?” Ash yelled, running his hands over his face.

He settled a little when Pikachu at least had the decency to curl into a ball and prostrate in apology. 

It’d been forever ago since he first grabbed Pikachu from Professor Oak but Ash couldn’t hold onto his anger when he thought about how few times he’s actually ever been around a microwave with Pikachu. Brock used to handle all of the pokemon’s foods and he shared the same food preparation preferences as Ash’s mom. 

Falling to a squat beside the microwave, Ash gingerly pried the door open and peered inside. He murmured a curse when the waffle resembled an unprocessed ore left to oxidize then burnt into charcoal.

He turned to Pikachu. “You still hungry?” The loud grumble that came out of Pikachu’s stomach was answer enough. Ash brought his hand to his mouth and bit the tip of his nail. “Who else has a microwave?” 

Ash’s eyes strayed towards a knee high side table next to the front door. An unused ashtray was nestled behind a small vase of lilies. Both he and his mom had tossed in their house keys inside it when they'd come home together earlier that evening. His eyes zeroed in on the rusted half pokeball he’d turned into a keychain. Spiked brown hair and the scent of figs flashed in his head. He chuckled softly. 

He stood and grabbed Pikachu’s fur by the cuff of his neck. Shoving his other hand into the freezer, he grabbed the last box of waffles, then walked out the door. 

Considering Pallet was an actual town, the walk up towards the pokemon research center wasn’t as long as it had been when he was a child. Still a considerable walk, but _felt_ faster after having walked all over Kanto _and_ Johto regions primarily on foot for months on end. 

He strolled onto the property, frowning. The window curtains were drawn and only a single garden light was on, casting a flickering shine on the front door. With practiced steps, Ash followed along a garden path and walked to the back of the building. 

He eyed a window on the second floor and debated whether he should pull a rom-com move and throw a pebble at the window. Somehow knowing his human well enough, Pikachu swatted Ash’s face with his tail. Ash squawked indignantly and sputtered fur off his lip.

“Fine,” Ash said, rolling his eyes. “Take away all my fun, you ungrateful rattata.”

He eyed a pillar supporting a low awning a foot away from the window frame. It’d been difficult to climb when he was young without the aid of the bulbasaur or bellsprout running around the centre during the day. Thankfully vines had grown along the pillar over the years and it wrapped along it in patches, leaving a vertical staircase of a sort. 

Ash nudged Pikachu to climb first whilst he shoved the box under his chin. Pikachu eyed him nervously as Ash climbed the up pillar surprisingly quickly considering he still had half-lidded eyes from wanting so desperately to just go to sleep.

By the time he reached the top of the awning, his breathing was rapid and shallow. Sweat trailed his neck but the late summer breeze was cooling and Ash stretched out his neck to catch the breeze down his shirt. 

“Pikachu,” he said, wheezing. "Wake him up with your tail.” 

Pikachu skipped to the window. 

Ash had intended for Pikachu to gradually knock on the glass in soft repeating taps - but Pikachu was too hungry to give a shit any longer. The pokemon _slammed_ his tail repeatedly with the full swing of his entire body until the window frame shook and the glass vibrated with each aggressive thud. 

The window was pried open and Gary’s head stuck out. “What?!” he yelled, swaying his five inches of spiked bedhead hair as he swung his head side-to-side frantically looking around.

“Gary,” Ash whispered. Gary squinted in his general direction. “Psst, Gary!”

Ash knew exactly when Gary realized it was him by the loud smack Gary slapped into his own collarbone. “Ash. Ketchum.” 

Gary picked Pikachu up by the tail and tossed the pokemon over his shoulders into his room.

“It is three o’clock in the fucking morning,” he grumbled. 

He held his hand out to Ash and pulled him in through the window. Ash rolled in confidently. He spun on his feet and smirked when he saw the take-away containers of half-eaten sweet and sour roasted farfetch’d shoved onto the side of a desk, behind a tower of scribbled on papers and files. 

“I would like to know why the FUCK are you climbing in my window with---” Gary tappered off as Pikachu climbed up Ash’s body to settle on his shoulders. 

Ash pulled the box out from inside his shirt and snickered when Gary dropped his jaw. 

“...is that a box of frozen waffles?” Gary asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“I got hungry,” Ash said.

Gary crossed his arms and stood with a tilt of his hip. His raised eyebrow screamed for Ash to continue explaining.

“...and I accidentally broke my microwave.”

“Ash, I swear to god---”

“Come on! Lend me your microwave.”

“What if I didn’t have a microwave?!”

Ash pointed to the take-away cartons. “How’d you heat those up?”

Gary rolled his eyes. “Don’t you have a waffle iron?”

“Nope,” Ash shrugged. “Mom only made variations of stir-fries and soups.”

Gary shoved Ash in the chest. “Why didn’t you just heat the waffles in a pan on the stove?”

Ash spun in place and put up his hand then raised a single finger. “That...” He said, jabbing the finger under Gary’s chin, tilting the older boy's face up. “...is because I forgot you can do that too.”

Gary snorted and pushed Ash’s hand away. “Good thinking, loser.”

“Hey. YOU’RE the grandson of a famous pokemon researcher, not me.”

“And I thank Arceus for that every single day,” Gary nodded solemnly. “My dear Grandpa Oak’s labs would burn to the ground if it’d be left to you.”

“Jerk.” Ash pouted. “Just let me use your microwave real quick already.”

Gary held up his arms in surrender. “Sure, sure.” He started moving, then turned back and spoke over his shoulder as he walked out the door, “I’m just warning you we don’t have any butter or maple syrup in the labs.”

“...shit.”


End file.
